Kali Rietcheck: Mmm...Pancakes and French Toast!

Last week Thea made Italian pasta for dinner so it was decided I needed to cook an American meal. It was difficult coming up with an idea...Americans don´t have a staple food as Italians and pasta. Finally I decided on pancakes :). I made a list and my host mom bought what I needed. Today for lunch I made pancakes, french toast, bacon, and scrambled eggs with cheese. We also had watermelon. They loved it all! The table was nearly licked clean when we finished. "¡Buenisimo!" they said. Bueno is good, but buenisimo is really good, lol. I realized when we sat down I had forgotten to get orange juice and they began to pour wine in everyone´s glass. Pancakes and wine...strange combination! They called it summer wine...it was carbonated and a bit sweet, so almost juice-like...it worked, lol.

These past few days have been great! Thursday we signed up for nautical activities through the University and spent 3 hours at the beach learning how to windsurf, kayak andmanual surf. Manal surfing [I´m not sure if this is the right name] is basically balancing on a big surf board and rowing around--it is really difficult! I am still extremely sore! It was great though...a lot of fun. We even saw small jellyfish [a little bigger than softball-sized] swimming below our kayaks!

Friday we had our final exam for our Spanish class and a few of us went on a boat trip through the University to a nearby island called Tabarca. We took a large catamaran there and had a half hour to snorkel before we had dinner on the boat. Unfortunetely half an hour was more than enough to see the three fish that were there in the water. I´ve read in several places that Tabarca is great for snorkeling though we most definitely did not find a good spot. Fish or no fish, it was fun swimming around. The boat ride was super nice and we watch the sunset on our way back.

Today I have began packing and preparing for the train ride tomorrow to Barcelona where we will fly out of on Monday morning. We are to be in Cedar Rapids late Monday evening. So, this is probably my last post from Spain :[. It is has been a quick trip, but quite the experience!